


Thirteen Years

by stalltherain



Series: Ones You Love [2]
Category: Timeless (TV 2016)
Genre: Adventure, Canon Universe, Character Death Fix, F/M, Fix-It, Friendship, Friendship/Love, Implied/Referenced Suicide, Minor Rufus Carlin/Jiya, Pre-Relationship, Slow Burn, Slow Romance, Time Travel, Time Travel Fix-It
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-03
Updated: 2020-08-03
Packaged: 2021-03-05 21:39:58
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,754
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25682158
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/stalltherain/pseuds/stalltherain
Summary: Lucy, Jiya, and Rufus carry out their plan to save Flynn. (Part 2/7) -- Series relationship is primarily Garcy. This part is heavily Rufus and Jiya's reasons & involvement getting Flynn back. Some Riya.
Relationships: Garcia Flynn/Lucy Preston
Series: Ones You Love [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1849153
Comments: 6
Kudos: 28





	Thirteen Years

**Author's Note:**

> WARNINGS: Implied Suicide. Only briefly implied.
> 
> Recommend you read the previous in the series first. After reading this part, there are extra research details in the comments if you're interested.
> 
> Thanks to SetFiresJust2WatchThemBurn. If there are mistakes, it's my fault for changing things after beta.
> 
> Thanks to anyone who has ever posted a Garcy vid to YouTube.

The lights flicker overhead. Struggling as if grumpy at having been disturbed from two years of slumber. When they emerge from their rest, the expansive room brightens to reveal a massive green tarp in the middle of the cavernous space. Dust plumes into the air as Lucy and Rufus pull the tarp off the lifeboat. The machine has sat guarded and untouched since the team jumped to São Paulo in 2014.

Rufus balls up his end of the tarp and passes it to Lucy to stash in an unused corner. He strolls to the platform which still has non-functional military controls next to computer screens interfaced with the lifeboat.

"For the record," Jiya strikes her keyboard as she brings the computer systems online, "I'm still against this plan."

Rufus scrunches his face as he comes to a stop at the top of the scuffed steps behind his wife. "The guy did sacrifice his life for mine. I'm kind of ashamed I didn't try to save him already."

Jiya hits a few keys then tosses Rufus a sideways glance. "You guys weren’t exactly friends."

"Sure he had me shot once." Rufus leans on the thick metal railing surrounding the platform. "But I _was_ on a mission to kill him, so," he raises one shoulder and his mouth twitches upward on one side, "bygones. He still saved my life. It feels like I should have done more."

Jiya’s black ponytail swings as she rolls her head back. She spins the creaky metal stool to face Rufus. "Yeah, okay. What happened sucks for Flynn. But what if we accidentally change the timeline back to one where you’re dead?"

"Not to worry." Rufus wears a smug grin. "I’ll still come back alive."

Jiya’s eyes show no sign of amusement. "To a timeline where you died seven years ago."

The grin slips away, and he stuffs his hands in his pockets. "So I’ll have to answer a lot of questions and do a lot of paperwork." He raises his chin. "All that matters to me is that you remember I’m not dead." 

"Yeah, well if anybody ever killed themselves in the past and lived to tell, I didn’t hear about it."

"Okay, sure. We still can’t explain _all_ the repercussions of time travel. Like how did I end up in 1848 if Flynn traveled there with you three when the lifeboat only seats four? In my timeline, Flynn didn’t go back with us, so he couldn’t have saved me or left Lucy a letter. If I just appeared there like you three say I did, why didn’t the letter _disappear_? Or the lifeboat revert?" Rufus waves his hands as he speaks, forgetting his disagreement with his partner in favor of an argument with the concepts of time travel. "We both agree that based on our previous understanding, I should have shown up only _after_ you returned to the present. We assumed objects outside of their timestream remain unchanged. Obviously, that’s not how it works, because some things outside their timestream _did_ change. But it can’t be random. We just haven’t plugged in the right variables to explain it yet."

"That’s my point, Rufus."

"Right." He wrinkles his nose and bobs his head side to side. "That’s valid. But the letter didn’t disappear, so even past me dies -- which I won’t -- I should still be fine. My guess is that only additive objects can change."

"We haven’t proven that. What about the corrupted lifeboat logs from Flynn's jump?"

"Corrupted but not gone."

"Might as well be. They aren't readable. The only thing we got off the drive was the time interval between jumps. Face it, anything could happen. If we come back to a timeline where you died, we don't know what effect that would have."

"But we’re playing it safe specifically to prevent that." Rufus raises an eyebrow. "How would it even happen?"

"I don't know." Jiya throws up her hands. "What if we miss the landing and drop on top of Flynn right before he kills Jessica?"

"Then…" Despite himself, a smile creeps up one side of his lips. "We would be in a cartoon...?"

Jiya shoots him with a glare. "All I’m saying is that with time travel, there’s never a one hundred percent chance nothing changes. I haven’t been able to see any visions. What if that’s a bad sign? I don’t want to take chances with your life."

Rufus steps toward Jiya and places his hand on her shoulder. "I know, and if it was your life, I’d probably feel the same. But I need to do this." He lays a kiss on her head. "I appreciate that you’re here anyway."

From across the empty space, Lucy joins her two friends. "Remember, if we stick to the plan, nothing changes."

"Nothing major," Rufus amends.

Lucy scowls at him. "Not helping."

"No matter what, it'll be a different timeline is all I'm saying."

The discussion cuts off with Denise’s voice echoing as she enters the oversized room. "Lucy, you promised the only difference will be that nobody finds a John Doe in 2012, and we’re left with a mystery of what happened to Flynn. I'm keeping this one off the books, so please don't rewrite any of the last thirteen years."

"Not like anybody else would remember if we do," Rufus whispers to Jiya and Lucy.

Lucy aims a glare at Rufus then focuses on Jiya. "How long until the lifeboat is ready?"

She taps a few keys. "Fifteen minutes to full charge."

Denise approaches the group and hands Lucy a small stack of file folders. "I put the addresses you need on top." Denise hesitates before she releases the files to Lucy’s grasp. "You're sure you don't want Wyatt to go instead? I get why Rufus and Jiya want to, but we don’t know exactly what to expect there. It would be safer to send him."

"No." Lucy takes the files. "He wouldn’t want to."

"I can order him to go."

"No, don’t. Really. I couldn’t ask him that. He…" Lucy’s nose wrinkles. "Never mind. Just… No. I can do it." 

Lucy moves to the tables near the hallway. Denise keeps pace with her.

"Wait. What is it?"

"It’s nothing." Lucy pulls out a chair and takes a seat.

Denise crosses her arms in front of her. "I’m about to risk my career giving you an unapproved trip in a time machine. If there’s something I should know..."

"It’s nothing. Wyatt just… he… uh…" Lucy flips through the files in her hands then stares intently at a random one. "He has it in his head that I'm in love with Flynn or something."

"What? Why on earth would he think that? Flynn was a criminal."

"I don’t know." Lucy sweeps a lock of hair behind her ear. A fraction of a smile flickers across her lips.

Denise’s eyes narrow. "Wait. _Are_ you?"

Lucy’s shoulders stiffen. "No, of course not." She spreads the file folders on the table. "Even if I were, that's not what this is about."

Denise continues to scrutinize Lucy as she fumbles with the pages in front of her, not focusing on any one of them. After a few random shuffles, Lucy stills her hands then restacks the folders into a single pile.

Unwilling to risk canceling the mission because the woman in front of her thinks she’s making an irrational choice, Lucy places both hands on the table and locks on Denise’s eyes.

"I gave up on him, and everyone followed my lead. We-- _I_ owe this to him."

"This isn’t on you, Lucy. It was my call. You’re right. Flynn was one of us, but we left him behind. And if we can save him without getting a time machine into Rittenhouse’s hands, we’re going to try." Denise moves to take a step away, then leans back and taps the table. "Let me know if you need anything else. I’m going to see how Rufus and Jiya are coming along."

Lucy turns her attention to the folders in front of her. On top is a single sheet of paper containing a set of addresses. One is on Portera Road; the other on Ocean Coast Drive. 

Underneath the addresses is a map, which she unfolds and flattens on the table to reveal "San Diego County" at the top. She searches for the first address. After finding the right place, she draws a dot and writes "Jessica". She hunts for the second location, draws a dot, and writes "Dunes". 

When she’s done, her brow furrows. The locations don’t make sense. According to Connor, a person can’t survive long in a time they’d already visited. Although the lifeboat upgrades should have let him stay longer, the place where Flynn’s body was found seems too far from where Jessica was killed for Flynn to survive the walk.

Lucy routes the path between the locations on her computer. Three hours and fifty-two minutes. Even longer than she’d thought. Had Flynn walked that far? Did she map it wrong?

Lucy double checks. When she’s done, the weight of her guilt leaves her even more determined to save her friend.

"Lifeboat is ready to go." Rufus’ voice startles Lucy out of her thoughts.

"Is it too late to change our minds?" Jiya asks, sliding into a chair across from Lucy. "We all agreed this probably won’t even work."

"I think we _disagreed_ that it _might_ work," Rufus counters, raising a finger for emphasis.

"He would have had minutes. Even if we find him, it’ll be too late."

"Might is good enough for me." Lucy pushes the map toward them.

Jiya’s eyes widen as she leans in. "Oh my god. Are those the right locations?"

Lucy continues to focus on the map. "I double-checked them."

"No." Jiya’s spine straightens and her voice rises. "That’s over ten miles. He couldn’t survive that walk."

Rufus drops into the seat beside Jiya. His head falls into his hands. "We left him there alone."

"But he didn't send the lifeboat back right away, so he had to have killed Jessica and already been too far gone when he sent it. There's no other reason he wouldn't have come back, too." Jiya’s face drops as realization hits her. "Is there?" Her eyes dart from the map to Rufus to Lucy. "Why didn’t he just come back?"

Lucy doesn’t meet Jiya’s gaze. 

Jiya’s mouth drops open, and she shakes her head. "This isn’t right." She stands with one hand firmly on the table. "I’m in." She reaches her palm toward Rufus. "Give me a chip."

Rufus stands, reaches into his pocket, and pulls out four quarter-sized aluminum disks. He hands one to Jiya and two to Lucy, keeping one himself.

Lucy places one in her jeans pocket and turns the other over in her fingers. "How do these work?"

"Well, you know we can't exist twice in the same time," Rufus says. "That’s because the universe tries to right itself by destroying duplicate energy. Our bodies can’t withstand the effect. The lifeboat upgrades by future Jiya gave us longer. We tried models to increase that, but we couldn't do it. The upgrade works by keeping the lifeboat and the matter it transports partially in the same state as when it’s traveling through time. That wears off faster when you focus on keeping the whole lifeboat there too. So Jiya and I figured out how to extend the time by affecting a smaller target using..."

There's no telling how long he'll keep going with this explanation. Lucy makes a mental note to choose her words more carefully when asking an engineer "how" and interrupts.

"Sorry, Rufus. I mean how do we _use_ them?"

"Oh, right." He holds one up to show her. "Just press in until the little blue light comes on. Then peel this off and stick it on your skin." He finishes by attaching the device to his arm.

Jiya places hers on her neck and adds, "It doesn’t completely block the effect, only dampens it. And it’s not like we could fully test them without jumping back in time. So we aren’t sure exactly how long they work. We hope thirty minutes."

Lucy sticks hers on her neck then scoops up the map and files. "Okay. Let's go."

The three make their way to the lifeboat, past Denise who's examining the computer screens.

As the others climb into the lifeboat, Jiya grabs the top of the platform railing and leans through. "You got this?"

"I've got the basics. If anything goes wrong, I'll call Connor."

Jiya smacks the rail and backs away. She jogs up the steps and ducks through the circular opening to join Lucy and Rufus before the door closes behind her. 

When they’re buckled in, Rufus enters the destination and time into the future-upgraded touch screen. He taps "AUTOPILOT". "Away we go!"

Nothing happens.

He repeats the process, this time accompanied by a series of grumbles.

Still nothing.

Lucy’s chest tightens, and her shoulders tense. "What's wrong?"

"Good question." After a few taps on the screen, Rufus throws his hands up and spins to face her. "Autopilot's dead."

Lucy leans forward, gripping her knees as the harness cuts into her shoulders. "Can you fix it?"

Rufus scratches his head and casts hopeful eyes toward Jiya.

"Don’t look at me." She holds her hands in front of herself. "Maybe future me could, but it took her years to do this. I’ve never even looked at the upgrades. It could be days before I know where to start."

"We could wait. We do have a time machine." Rufus tilts his head and clicks his tongue. "And more importantly, nobody else has one to change things before we get there." 

Lucy’s grip tightens, her fingers digging into her skin. The months she’d waited for her friends to develop the technology that gives them the time they need; the hours of arguing with Denise. Only to be thwarted by a computer glitch.

The prudent choice is to wait and fix the autopilot. But what if Denise changes her mind about allowing the mission? What if somebody lets the plan slip to Wyatt, and he convinces his boss that it’s not worth it?

"Isn’t there something you can do?"

Jiya cranes her neck to assess from over his shoulder. "What about the rest of the system?"

Rufus rotates his chair, pushes the display back, and pulls out a keyboard from a side compartment. As he types commands, a series of green indicators light up. 

"Everything else is fine."

Lucy’s grip loosens, and her shoulders lift. "So what does that mean?"

"I can fly manually."

Lucy’s fingers relax, and she sinks into her seat.

Rufus bites his cheek as he swivels his chair. "But the timing isn’t going to be as accurate."

"No. It’s okay. You’ve done this plenty of times."

"Are you sure? It’s been a while, and I never needed to be precise on the landings."

"I trust you."

Rufus spins and pulls out a joystick. He feasts his eyes on the remaining manual buttons and switches above his head. "Wow. I didn’t realize how much I missed you guys."

Lucy narrows her eyes and scrunches her nose, questioning Jiya. In return, Jiya raises her eyebrows and exaggerates a shrug.

"Uh…" Jiya leans toward her husband. "Rufus?"

"Sorry, I was talking to the buttons," he replies over his shoulder.

Rufus flips the main switch and presses a button. He enters several keystrokes and grabs the joystick. The air fills with a familiar whirring sound. The capsule vibrates rapidly. Lucy’s stomach flips as the air pops, and she knows they’ve left 2025.

Lucy swallows back a wave of nausea. "How close did we get?"

Rufus checks the screen. "Five minutes later than we wanted."

"That'll do. Good work."

Lucy unbuckles her seat belt. She hops out the side of the lifeboat, and her sneakers touch down in the sand. Her hair billows in the night ocean air. Lucy rubs her arms and holds them against her body, warding away the windy chill off the water.

Rufus and Jiya follow her onto the beach. 

Jiya shivers as her ponytail whips in the wind. "This is one of those times I wish I’d listened to my mom’s advice to bring a jacket."

Rufus unzips his hoodie and wraps it around his wife. He rubs his goosebumped arms. Pushed by the wind at his back, he follows Lucy through the sand.

The beach where Flynn was found stretches for miles. The dune-covered peninsula has only one road in; the south being completely cut off by an ocean inlet. The north has apartments just out of view of the lifeboat. Next to them is a narrow walkway flanked by rock walls. The only route to enter the beach. It will be impossible to miss Flynn pass by.

They approach the beach entrance. There are no footprints in the sand, a reassuring sign that Flynn hasn’t already walked past.

Rufus and Jiya lean against the wall. Lucy paces in the sand, arms held tightly to her body, rubbing them for warmth. In the wind, her hair lashes at her face. Her feet sink into the uneven sand, teetering her steps.

This isn’t the rescue mission Lucy requested. She asked to jump to where Jessica was killed then wait as long as needed for Flynn to arrive and events to play out. Denise refused, arguing there was no way to know exactly what happened. She wouldn't risk national security if there was any possibility of interference that may result in Jessica going free. If they wanted to land near Jessica, it had to be after they were certain she was already dead. Lucy felt confident they could simply stand by and avoid interfering, but she conceded.

Since the corrupted logs couldn't provide the time of Flynn's return jump, they relied on Wyatt's statements from the 2012 police report. There were twenty minutes between when he believed he dropped off his wife and returned to get her. But if Flynn had immediately taken her out, twenty minutes later, he would already be on his way to the place where his body was found. Without any way to know what route he’d taken, that only left the option of waiting for him to arrive at the beach.

Lucy gathers the hair whipping into her eyes and searches the narrow road. Empty. She rakes her hands through her hair, pushing it out of her face again. It’s been ten minutes, but still no sign of Flynn.

Lucy challenges whether Rufus is certain their landing was right. With barely checked irritation, he assures her it was. The group continues to wait. Lucy continues to pace.

Jiya ignores the low ringing in her ears, but soon, it’s replaced by a sharp stabbing pain. Jiya lets out a yelp, presses the palm of her hand to her temple, and doubles over.

Rufus moves to her side and grasps her shoulder. "Are you okay?"

"I don’t think so. Maybe my chip isn’t working."

"Or maybe you're more sensitive." With one arm wrapped around Jiya’s shoulders, Rufus implores Lucy. "We have to leave."

With her hair tangling in the wind, Lucy rounds on Rufus. "He could be here any minute!"

Holding his arm around Jiya, Rufus steps away from the wall and makes his way past Lucy to the lifeboat. She reaches for his arm. Rufus stops. His shoulders slump, and his head falls forward. "I’m sorry." His arm slips out of Lucy’s grasp as he continues past.

"We were supposed to have more time!" Lucy shouts into the wind, knowing that detail is meaningless, but feeling cheated nonetheless.

Lucy sweeps her hair from her face and searches the small street for any hint of a figure. One never appears.

She turns. Rufus and Jiya shrink as the distance between them grows. With a mix of hope and panic, Lucy scrutinizes the empty street once more. Nothing. She grits her teeth, curses, then follows her friends.

As she storms through the uneven sand toward the pair ahead, Lucy racks her brain for an alternative. Jiya has to leave but maybe not all three of them do. Rufus could take Jiya back to 2025 then return. The upgraded time machine could do it. They'd already taken it on repeated jumps.

Yet... a question nags at her. How long would she wait? It had been more than four hours since his arrival in 2012. He should have been at the beach by now. How could he have survived this long? Had the police report on his death been wrong? If it had, where else would Flynn have gone?

"His family!" Lucy sprints the remaining hundred yards, pushing against the wind. She rushes past Rufus and Jiya then scrambles inside the lifeboat. She grabs the file folders, flipping through them, scattering pages to the floor until she finds Flynn’s NSA file containing his home address from the time he worked for them.

She retrieves the map and finds Flynn’s street as Rufus helps Jiya inside. 

"We have to go here." She holds up the map to Rufus and points.

"What? Why?" His seat buckle clicks. "When?"

"Flynn’s house. What if he _did_ go see his family?" She leans forward and holds the map toward Rufus. "Look how much closer it is to where Jessica died. What would it have taken Flynn to walk there? Maybe ten, twenty minutes?"

Rufus gives the map a quick once-over. "Yeah, probably. But we can’t sneak a one-story-high, spinning metal ball into a residential neighborhood."

Lucy searches the page. "Here." She points to an empty area a quarter-mile away. "I can get to his house and back in less than ten minutes."

Rufus assesses his wife, who is leaning on her hands in her lap. "Jiya might not make it that long."

"Drop me off. Take Jiya home then come back."

"I don’t know. We can’t even be sure he’s there, and Jiya was really worried about me going alone on this mission..."

"Rufus, please!"

He groans and throws his head back. After a beat, he leans forward with a spark in his eye. "I’ll drop you off and jump ahead ten minutes."

Lucy’s face lights up.

He locks eyes with her. "But you’re going to be pushing the limit, and if I miss the landing or anything goes wrong with your chip like Jiya’s..."

Lucy leans back and buckles her seat belt. "Let’s do it."


End file.
